Director: Steve Miner
Writer: Ron Kurtz
Starring: Betsy Palmer, Amy Steel
Body Count: 10
Review: The end of the first Friday the 13th shows young Jason Voorhees rising up out of Crystal Lake to get revenge on the young girl who murdered his mother. Friday the 13th Part 2 takes that concept and runs with it, having Jason come back from the grave, now a grown man, to do his mother's work and kill off camp counselors who are spending their time doing "extra-curricular activities" (such as sex or drugs) instead of watching the kids.
The story of the first film is recounted by one of the new crop of counselors as the group sits around campfire. The counselor brings up the fact that Jason's body was never found, and sure enough, before long, Jason's very much alive body is spotted all over the camp, killing off each teen one-by-one.
Since the story wasn't all that much different from the first film, the makers of Friday the 13th Part 2 had to rely on something else to keep their film fresh: creative death sequences. Each murder is done in some new way, with the coolest by far being a teen in a wheelchair receiving a machete to the face and then plummeting down a steep staircase in the pouring rain.
Friday the 13th does a good job of continuing the story of the first film, without taking it too far that other filmmakers couldn't make another couple of sequels. The plot doesn't advance very much--just enough to keep the viewer interested long enough to see another slaying. The climax comes when Jason is unmasked, and the viewer can see just how badly disfigured his face is. And, of course, the end of the film sets up the inevitable Friday the 13th Part 3.
Trivia: Though every popular image of Jason Voorhees shows him clad in his trademark hockey mask, that mask did not actually appear until the third film. Whenever Jason is shown in part two, he is seen wearing a large canvas bag over his head, with an eyehole cut in the appropriate place.
